Before our invention there were various techniques for shaping metal vessels. None of these techniques alone were particularly well suited to provide a low cost, lightweight contoured vessel by way of a high speed production line, wherein the contoured vessel is made form highly recyclable metal and the production line decoration and vessel shaping can be easily customized.
With regards to metal shaping, current metal shaping methods employ concepts of hydro forming, wherein a fluid is used at high pressure to shape the metal. Other methods include pressure ram forming, wherein a ram is pressed into a metal perform to deforming the metal into the shape of a surrounding mold, and yet other methods include using linear motion in combination with a die to shape the metal.
However, each of these methods has shortcomings when it comes to using the method in a standalone application of manufacturing vessels in high volume production lines and none of the methods purport dynamic and flexible shape customization as an ability or asset.
With regards to hydro forming, forming time can be lengthy. It is not uncommon for it to take several minutes to deform a single piece of metal and as such hydro forming though a reliable forming option does not lend itself well to trying to achieve vessel forming at line speeds of around 600 or more vessels per minute. With regards to pressure ram forming molds are required and as such can limit the customizability of the shaped vessel. In addition, there is a tight design relationship between the ram design and the mold that can limit vessel customization flexibility. With regards to die forming it can be the shear number of dies required to shape a vessel that can be a limiting factor for vessel customization flexibility.
On the other hand these and a few other techniques have been developed to shape metal and as such to manufacture shaped metal vessels at high speeds requires using these and other techniques in an innovative new way incorporating these and other technologies into a production line configuration that overcome the limitations and builds in the ability to mass customize the production line, decoration applied to the vessel, and the shaped vessel itself.
What is needed is a solution that can be scaled to accommodate as many metal forming technologies that are required to raise production speeds and line efficiencies, increasing the number of types and kinds of shaped vessels producible by a single production line. These production line speed increases, efficiencies, and variation capabilities of the shaped vessels are required to increase customization capabilities and lower the shaped metal vessel production costs. Such factors barriers are currently gating items in being able to scale volume, create distribution opportunities, and meet changing on-the-go consumer needs.
Currently there are production lines that can manufacture metal packaging; however these lines among other things, do not posses the capability of dynamic on-the-fly changeovers, do not accept consumer or event data to create customized packaging, and cannot be scaled in configurations to produce a multitude of varying sizes, decoration styles, and shaped vessels. Furthermore, current metal packaging production lines typically do not have the capability to contour the vessel along its entire length. Instead metal shaping is typically limited to the top or bottom portion only as many metal forming techniques are not capable of contouring an entire surface length.
Even if the technological problems of speed and shape were overcome for a single production line it would be too costly to build a production line to produce only a single type or kind of vessel. As such, there is a long felt need for a production line that can shape and contour the entire surface of the metal vessel and has the inherent flexibility to produce many different types, sizes, and kinds of shaped metal vessels. Furthermore, there is a long felt need to consolidate non-shape forming operations such as decoration, trimming, and top forming, to name a few into the shaping process as a way to further reduce production line costs, increase metal packaging reliabilities and speed the vessel forming process.
Furthermore, consumer packaging insights suggest consumer's want more choices of grip, shape, decoration, styles, coatings, and closure type to meet the ever expanding on-the-go lifestyle. All of these features are unmet needs with current technology. In addition, current metal forming techniques alone cannot meet the needs of consumer's and cannot meet the sensitive packaging cost targets necessary to open the metal vessel market to mass consumers packaging opportunities.
In this regard, current hindrances in addition to the speed of metal forming technologies, decoration customization abilities, and top form flexibilities include metal forming production line changeover. In this regard, to be competitive a production line changeover can no longer be measured in hours, instead changeover needs to be done on-the-fly accommodating different sizes, shapes, and decoration styles driven by business insights, technical insights, and consumer needs.
These reasons, issues, and problems as well as other reasons, issues, and problems give rise to a long felt need for the present invention.